The new Fuse incubator / tech space cohort at A&O Shearman has been announced and it’s very focused on the crypto and digital assets world, with 10 companies in that area, along with 6 in legal tech, plus 3 alumni.
You can see more on their website – here, if you want to find the individual links and more.
The program runs for seven months. Each company will be mentored by an A&O Shearman partner who provides relevant subject matter expertise and their networks. They will also have access to Fuse’s specially designed innovation space at A&O Shearman’s London offices and a newly launched Fuse space in A&O Shearman’s San Francisco office.
A&O Shearman partner and head of Fuse, Shruti Ajitsaria, said: ‘This year, in addition to receiving more than 230 applications from across 28 countries for our LegalTech stream, we also had 80 companies nominated by our clients to our digital assets stream.
‘Digital assets are transforming the legal landscape, driving operational efficiencies and helping companies to access new markets by introducing new infrastructure, categories of property and ownership, each of which challenge traditional legal frameworks. Our clients want us to understand the underlying technology deeply, to enable us to be at the forefront of those legal changes.
‘Fuse underlines A&O Shearman’s strong commitment to act as a thought partner to our clients beyond the purely legal. We are here to shape and lead the debate on topics which are front of mind for clients – in a differentiated way. Now as A&O Shearman, we enter an exciting chapter in the evolution of Fuse.’
Companies in Fuse Cohort 8
Digital Assets stream:
- Ava Labs – New York: Ava Labs streamlines the launch of high-performance Web3 applications on the Avalanche blockchain, a scalable, smart contract platform with customizable Subnet infrastructure for business-specific blockchain solutions.
- Blockchainyour IP – Paris: BlockchainyourIP simplifies and automates the protection of creations and innovations, using Blockchain technology which provides a systematic dating layer to enhance the protection of intellectual property portfolios.
- ClearToken – London: ClearToken provides a Central Counterparty to centralize clearing, collateral, and risk management processes to reduce bilateral counterparty risk in settlement, financing, and derivative transactions, maintaining 24/7 operations to manage risk in real-time via margin and default fund contributions.
- Digital Asset Holdings – Zurich: Founded in 2014, Digital Asset is the leading provider of blockchain and tokenization software and services for the world’s largest financial institutions, market infrastructure, and tech providers. Our blockchain platform, Daml, is used to build applications that synchronise data and transactions across organisational boundaries to eliminate reconciliation and enable risk-free settlement. Only Daml applications seamlessly interoperate via the Canton Network to unlock the potential for synchronised financial markets.
- Funds DLT – Luxembourg: FundsDLT streamlines a range of fund distribution activities, using blockchain, APIs and Cloud technology to automate and mutualize processes.
- HOLAX – Luxembourg: HQLAX leverages Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to enhance efficiencies in the securities finance and repo industry by enabling market participants to execute frictionless, precise, and real-time transfer of ownership of securities. HQLAx integrates DLT with current triparty and custody systems, enhancing clients’ collateral mobility and reducing expensive intraday liquidity needs.
- KUMO – Luxembourg: KUMO provides carbon banking solutions which leverage blockchain and tokenization to derisk lending in the carbon market through carbon credit collateralization. KUMO’s technology enables the collateralization of carbon credits in TradFi and DeFi to secure lending products in the carbon markets.
- Oasis Pro Markets – New York: Oasis Pro provides a holistic multi-asset trading platform solution for public and private tokenized securities using digital or fiat currency. Oasis Pro’s subsidiary, Oasis Pro Markets, operates a multi-asset alternative trading system and a full-service investment bank.
- SWIAT – Frankfurt: SWIAT provides regulatory-compliant blockchain software for an open decentralized financial market infrastructure and running an SCO60-compliant blockchain for third-party use case deployment.
- Zodia Markets – UK: Zodia Markets is a digital asset brokerage platform which aligns with the standards and principles of traditional finance and is a majority-owned subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank.
LegalTech stream:
- Testudo – UK: Testudo is creating new AI insurance markets to enable institutions to adopt AI technology safely and responsibly.
- Juristic – Denmark: Juristic provides a digital toolkit which, streamlines legal workflows, automates timelines, assists with project management, and transforms data into tangible client deliverables.
- Hence – UK: Hence Technologies builds software which automates, optimizes, and innovates complex legal workflows and use cases, ranging from outside counsel management to litigation management to geopolitical risk management.
- Jure – UK: Jure is a judicial analytics platform which combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights for litigation strategy development.
- TGA – USA: TGA develops corporate gaming solutions to captivate the attention of, facilitate communication with, and educate participants, measuring players in relation to specific corporate objectives.
- Jigsaw – London: Jigsaw facilitates the creation of attractive, data-rich diagrams for various purposes, including corporate, funds, tax and trust matters, in a fraction of the time that it currently takes using other tools.
Alumni companies:
• Avvoka – London: Avvoka helps lawyers draft and negotiate any legal document, leveraging structured contract data to create better commercial outcomes by monitoring negotiation patterns and clause variations. The powerful no-code automation editor empowers more users to generate accurate documents at scale.
• Enigio – UK/Sweden: Enigio helps companies to create freely transferable digital documents and assets. Enigio’s trace:original is a generic solution that can be used to securely transfer both value and data between any entity and/or organisation without the need for onboarding.
• Hunit – London: Hunit helps lawyers turn conventional, natural language agreements into self-executing smart legal contracts.
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And that’s all folks. It’s another long weekend over here in the UK. Have a good one and see you on the flipside.